Our Breakdown Of ‘True Life: My Boyfriend’s Fed Up With My Weight’

True Life: We need to talk about tonight’s True Life episode. The episode focused on couples who were “mixed weight,” meaning one partner in the relationship weighed a significant amount more than the other partner.

Didn’t watch? Here’s what you missed:

+ Sara + Enrique

Although Sara loves Enrique because he’s caring, it’s clear he cares a little too much about one thing: her weight. And to make matters worse, when Enrique introduced Sara to his mom, she called Sara fat! To her face. Now, if Enrique had been reading the signs, he would have realized that Sara, wearing So Worth Loving designs throughout the episode, cared about accepting herself no matter what size she was. Instead, Enrique fell victim to concern trolling.

When Enrique and Sara finally moved in, the tables were suddenly turned. Sara was on top of her fitness game, but Enrique ended up gaining weight. What did he do? He blamed Sara for it!

+ Desiree + Derrick

Although Desiree and Derrick’s portion of the episode started out rocky, we loved seeing how they evolved as a couple. Initially, Derrick tells Desiree he’s going to break up with her unless she loses weight. The stakes get even higher when Desiree learns she is pregnant. Since Desiree had a miscarriage due to her weight, Derrick told her he wasn’t going to see her again until she got back on track with eating right and exercising.

We love that Desiree took her health into her own hands and consulted a doctor and personal trainer to make sure she was approaching exercising while pregnant in a healthy way. We also couldn’t get enough of the twosome exercising as a couple! That’s the way partners should support each other! And who didn’t cheer when, at the end of the episode, Derrick and Desiree danced the night away and celebrated the next step in their life? Seeing the newly engaged couple smile and knowing they had a healthy baby at home was the perfect way to end last night’s episode.

+ What We Learned

After watching the episode, we couldn’t stop thinking about how we’d support our partners if they struggled with making healthier choices. First things first: we’d want to make sure our language was supportive; after all, there’s a difference between voicing concerns and being emotionally abusive. If you’re not sure what that looks like, the folks at Half of Us have all the info right here.

Also, it might help if we tried to understand what they were dealing with instead of just trying to “fix” them. Are they dealing with body image issues? Are the dealing with an eating disorder? If you want to support someone, you need to make an effort to find out what they’re struggling with in the first place.

Finally, we’d want to address our own biases. Are we reacting out of a place of love for this person? Or are we reacting from a place of judgment about someone else’s weight?

These are complicated boundaries to navigate, so it’s totally fine if you’re not sure where to start. We recommend heading over to sites like Half of Us, So Worth Loving, and Love is Respect to start. At the end of the day, though, just treat the person like a human being, someone who deserves your love and respect.